In July 1868, Congress
essentially ended the existence of the Freedmen's
Bureau, a temporary federal agency established to provide basic relief
to emancipated slaves. Cartoonist A. R.
Waud honors its three years of service by portraying it as the necessary
line of defense protecting black Southerners from their hostile white
neighbors.

In February 1862, George William Curtis,
an abolitionist and columnist for Harper's Weekly, wrote Treasury Secretary
Salmon Chase suggesting the creation of a federal agency to assist the
former slaves crossing into Union territory. It was an idea
already eagerly discussed among abolitionists, and Curtis publicly
promoted it in his
ďLoungerĒ column in the March 1, 1862 issue of Harper's Weekly.He placed such importance on the issue that he addressed it
again in the first issue of the newspaper in which he assumed
responsibility as editorial writer, December 26, 1863.Curtis and his
father-in-law, Francis Shaw, president of the philanthropic Freedmenís
Relief Association, helped Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts draft the Freedmenís
Bill to establish the Freedmenís Bureau.

Radical
Republicans like Curtis wanted the agency in the Treasury Department
under the abolitionist Chase. Others wanted it positioned within
the War Department, so passage of the legislation was delayed until
after Chase resigned in 1864. In
March 3, 1865, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly
known as the Freedmenís Bureau. The final version of the bill
established a temporary agency within the War Department, under the
direction of General Oliver Otis Howard.

The law granted relief to black
and white persons displaced by the Civil War, but was aimed at assisting the freed
slaves in their transition from enslavement to liberty. The freed
slaves were provided basic shelter and medical care, assistance in labor-contract
negotiation and the establishment of schools, and similar
services. The Freedmen's Bureau was the first federal agency
dedicated to social welfare.

In February 1866, Congress
passed a second Freedmenís Bureau Act, which extended the
temporary agencyís life for two years and gave the United States Army the
responsibility of protecting the civil rights of black Americans in the
former Confederate states. President Andrew
Johnson, however, vetoed the bill. Although Congress had rejected
Johnson's own Reconstruction program in 1865 as too lenient, many
Republicans were surprised by the president's veto. It was the
beginning, though, of an increasingly acrimonious relationship between
the Democratic president and the Republican Congress over the shape and
control of Reconstruction in the postwar South.

That spring, President Johnson sent Generals John Steedman and
Joseph Fullerton on a tour of the South to gather information in an
effort to discredit the Freedmenís Bureau.Southern blacks, however, expressed strong support for the
continued presence of the Freemenís Bureau in the South, believing
that it gave them necessary aid and, especially, protection.In one case, when General Steedman offered a crowd of 800 blacks
a hypothetical choice between the Freedmenís Bureau and the United
States Army, the audience overwhelmingly chose the Bureau. In July
1866, Congress passed the Freedmenís Bureau Act a second time.President Johnson vetoed it again, but Congress was able to
override his veto and it became law.

The Freedmen's Bureau helped Southern blacks build schools and churches, enforced civil rights
and due process, facilitated the reunion of families separated by
slavery, and allocated basic necessities of food and shelter until
recipients could provide for themselves. Yet, for all the good
that it did, the agency's effectiveness was hampered by several
obstacles. During most of its three years of existence, it never
had sufficient funding or personnel (at its peak, it only had 900 agents throughout
the South). It also faced opposition from segments of the Southern
white population and their political representatives at the local,
state, and federal level. Furthermore, many whites in the North
and their congressmen became increasingly uneasy about Reconstruction,
and in this case over a federal social
program targeting one specific group of Americans.

On July 6, 1868, Congress
passed a law that essentially instructed the Freedmen's Bureau to close
up shop. The federal legislation extended the agency's life to the
end of the year, but discontinued it in the former Confederate states
that were reconstructed (all but three). On January 1, 1869,
General Howard brought most of the agency's activities to a halt.

In an editorial appearing in
the same issue as this cartoon, George William Curtis reflected on the vital role
the Freedmen's Bureau had played.
"No institution was ever more imperatively necessary, and none has
been more useful." The Harper's Weekly editor agreed
with cartoonist Waud's perspective that the Freedmen's Bureau had
prevented a "war of races" in the postwar South. The
Civil War ended with the slaves freed, but left them without resources and hated
in the land they knew. "The
Freedmen's Bureau was the conscience and common-sense of the country
stepping between the hostile parties and saying to them, with
irresistible authority, 'Peace!'" The agency
"stood between the freedmen and starvation and cruel laws,
meanwhile giving them arms and schools and civil and political equality,
that they might start fair in the common race."